September 12, 2011

Hidemari Sketch: Hoshimittsu

The third Hidemari Sketch series picks up the 'story' in the next semester and sees 2 more girls join the 4 previous characters. It continues with more of the same. The new season's animation's rather better, but increasing the core cast from 4 to 6 thins the available bandwidth for character development a bit. Still, its well paced. Those who liked the previous incarnations are likely to enjoy this one.

They seem a bit more chibi-fied on this cover.

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, it is based on a 4 panel comic strip and involves the antics of a group of young ladies going to a small but well regarded art school as they try to cope with living in a town extensively polluted by the detrius of an exploded zipatone factory, ( That last bit might not be canon)

Being about art students and written by creative types, it's sort of a Mary Sue
strip for aspiring artists. The humor is generally pretty dry and revolves mainly around sketch comedy and character bits. The pacing reminds me a lot of Peanuts.

The art and direction is exceedingly quirky. This latter may grow out of the first series being a throwaway filler show with no budget. The production team seems to have compensated for their initial lack of resources with offbeat art and a LOT of screen-tone. The first series was a runaway hit and SHAFT seems to have responded by throwing money at the animation team, though the quirkiness remains.

One thing I did find slightly dismaying:
The characters are all living in an apartment complex near the school and one of them is an established (and award winning) writer who has enrolled in the school to learn to draw so she can illustrate her light novels. So...I'd gotten it into my head that this was a college and that Sae was much older than the rest. That was certainly the vibe I got from the first two discs.
This show makes it much clearer that the art school is actually a high school. It just specializes in art.

This means that ...ummm...Sae is a high school student....which for some reason makes me feel both dirty and old.

"Why would that make...?...!!...Oh God...I just threw up a little in my mouth."

Despite that jarring realization It's still an enjoyable little franchise. A third of the way in this third installment is holding up very well.

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Eh, if the show had a bit more of Lucy and Linus in it, or even Charlie Brown, I might have loved it. Peanuts could be kind of harsh - cynical, existential, and pessimistic. The Hidemari seasons, on the other hand, make K-On! look like Funky Winkerbeanin comparison.

The interpretations also seem to be that the Siegel and Shuster families
will be able to start developing movies and other projects with the
portions of copyright that they control starting in 2013.

Their version of Superman would seem to be legally restricted from
developing the powers of flight. They would be forced to stay at the
power levels of Action #1 and the first two weeks of strips. Although
both parties would be free to create new works based on these separate
versions. I think it would be perfectly possible the 1938 Superman to be
made very interesting and vibrant franchise.